Monday, May 31, 2010

Winter

Thinking of next winter, no I am not collecting fire wood. Well yes I am, I can't say no. I need to get the dump truck finished, so I can start a big pile in the back yard. Everybody keeps offering me their fallen trees. For the locals in town I drive the tractor w trailer n chainsaw over. The 3x5 trailer doesn't haul much, so its lots of trips, good fun. Here is a video of taking the van and trailer into a pasture w cows.


What I was thinking about was leaving AB for the winter. That is the plan. The ideal comfort scenario, is to spend all winter in Mexico. But there is also potential of Victoria n Toronto. Although I am making enough to pay the bills, I am not making enough to save to support us in Mexico for 4-6 months. I just decided I need to make some money, printed up some brochures, haven't even passed any out and BLAM, I became choice electrical contractor for another 2 contractors. Let me tell you about them.

Chris I acquired giving a rough estimate over the phone to Larry, who was doing a joint venture with Chris. I gave Larry his usual stellar price of $50 an hour, estimated, and Chis was so impressed, he has me coming to give a quote on a big 4 plex he his building. I need to start charging more for driving into the city. I love the drive, but the time it takes is going to limit my income potential.

The second contractor, posted an add on Kijiji "Master Electrician needed" He was going on about saving his clients money, but he needs a Master to pull permits, and inspect his work before the inspectors come, and blah, blah, blah. I was thinking I have to charge at least $80 an hour to make this gig work, he is sounding like he wants to cheap out, the last guy left. I finally asked "what did the last guy make" "$85 an hour, or estimated jobs" perfect, I'll do it, got an appointment at 5 today to see the first job. This guy mantains 400 rental units, puts up modular homes, and much more. So we'll see how busy he keeps me, but I did agree on $80 an hour, and $0.60 km for work outside Edmonton.

I printed out 2 different simple fliers, with some cheap estimated prices for work. One geared toward old houses, for renovations, re lamping for a home sale, or service upgrades. And one brochure geared toward the new developments with unfinished basements, essentially offering to put a plug in for a second fridge, or freezer, finish the basement wiring, or add a light fixture. This way I can target area's of town, and get at least 3 small jobs in the same area to fill a day. Not sure where to put the fliers yet, but thinking the screen door, if nobody answers the door. I will probably need a new cell phone plan this summer if I continue this craziness.

I got into it w my GPS now I will be getting jobs all over again. Think this is GPS #5, it froze on a screen months ago. This was a Magellan, and after much hassle w their "automatic trouble shooter Maggie" on their web site, I finally got a phone number. Called them this morning, and they are sending me a new unit.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Monster Chickens

We have created monsters. These chickens are bigger than most, and they are supposed to lay more eggs, 2 every 3 days. Now when we don't feed them human food on our back yard visit they peck at your tows, when we wear flip flops, which is every day. I bend over to get something off the ground and the little bastards grab at the skin between my fingers. And as I mentioned before, they love jewelry, and eyeballs, don't let them on your shoulder without safetey glasses.

I put one dune buggy up for sale, and got one person interested. Here is a video I made for him, its a 2 parter, part 2 isn't up yet. It is an interesting effect basically fast forward 150%. I think I talk really slow, this makes me sound more excited, and gets the bit done in less time. Blogger seems to be messed up w just showing half the videos, I will try and fix that when I get around to it, till then, you can just double click on the vids to see them in youtube. I am not going to upload them AGAIN to blogger separately. I will try a smaller size embed.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

The Improved Rototiller


As promised the improved rototiller in action. This is my garden, the weather went to hell this weekend and Chris wasn't into doing his place. I have now removed the unit and cut the grass with the lawn tractor.

This video of the tiller is just one of 3 vids I tried taking, but the only one that stored. It was easy to "reproduce" the tilling videos, but yesterday I set the tripod up, with the Camera on my hammock. You see I can't have a relaxing nap any more in the hammock cause chickens fly up and land on me. They like to get on my shoulder and peck at my gold ear rings. Well yesterday, wile I was filming one tried to peck my eye out, not nice. But the video didn't store. Thats it, I bid on a new camera this morning. We got the aftermath blood shot eye on video, I think, haven't double checked. These cameras are only about $65 on Ebay, they take great HD, and if I have another one maybe I will have the balls to take this one apart to see whats "shaking" inside. It could be the rattling parts causing problems.

We came home w fire wood yesterday. The morning started off w a dispute with this guys kid. "oh no you don't buy dads lawn tractor, you fix it for him, so he doesn't keep borrowing mine". I thought sure, $100 I can put a new piston in, he says it has a hole in the piston, no compression. Well I can't believe the stuff people put value on. This lawn tractor, first of all was the 5hp style, cheap small tires. Every tire was cracked, flat, and fallen off the rim. Its been in this field for at least a decade. I never thought I would say it, but it wasn't worth touching. There was not one good part on it, unless you wanted something weird that doesn't wear out, like a steering wheel. It certainly wasn't worth "paying" something for, nor even worth the ridiculous argument with the son, that dad is going to have to keep borrowing your lawn tractor or buy a new one.

Monday, May 24, 2010


Its far from perfect. I found this bump video effect that made me look really scary, brought out all my wrinkles and made me look like I was 90 years old and scary. Because I used a green screen here I needed good light, and so the bump effect didn't have the same effect, and I just went ahead and used it anyway. So This isn't my best work but it was neat using a green screen and making the back drop, mostly, disappear. Its funny I had a green shirt on under my sweater and so you can see through a bit of my collar too. Weired both blogger and youtube are the same company but yet my video only half shows up on blogger. You get the idea from it anyway, if you double click on it I will come up in youtube perfectly centered.

I am excited about my video skills, and I will be starting to do some video marketing with them this week. I am not sure if I should use my existing channel or make a new channel for the video marketing, I don't know if all my redneck subscribers will enjoy a sales pitch. I am going to paint an office wall green to do the green screen effect in my office, with proper lighting on the back screen, todays video w the bump effect and poor light, the green showed up a bit in the corners.

The old Grainery Bar bar thats been closed for a yearish, has opened again with new owner. Michelle worked a Sunday out there, but isn't interested in taking a regular shift at the bar. I left the house to hang out w Michelle who had no custies. I was working on a new song on the computer when a custie came in. He's like whatcha doin? Why are you making a song? what videos do you make on youtube? Those were all responses to my answers, and BLAM when I told him about my videos, he has a weed eater for me w a broken wipper, wants to see it on a bike. He has an Ultra lite w a seized motor and no wings, was crashed, that I could probably have to make something. girocopter? Then BLAM someone else comes in the bar, they have a bunch of dead fall I can come take for fire wood and a seized lawn tractor I can have, no he wants "something" for it. We will go for a country road trip today, with the trailer, and come back with either a lawn tractor, if its hydrostatic, has a PTO or snow blower attachment, or fire wood. Can you imagine how much junk I would have if I went to the bar on a regular basis, or even left the house for that matter.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

5 Chickens 2 Dogs

Its hard to eat outside now, without feeding little bits to 5 chickens and 2 dogs. But the chickens don't give up, they fly onto your lap or onto your lunch or whatever flat surface they can make a landing on. One flew onto the lit BBQ the other day wile I was flipping the burgers, good thing I close it when I am not near it. I'm sure I will get video of the crazy chickens at some point.

I did some sweet dry earth break up w my backyard built tractor tiller. but for some reason my camera didn't record it. It has taken a good half dozen headers w the tripod blowing over outside and has a few quarks. Its just started recording but not recording at the same time, it might be the new SD card. Chris wants to rent it this weekend and till his whole half acer lot, so I will personally video tape that, then remove the tiller when he is done.and probably never attach it to the tractor again.

The Tiller was given to me by Sheila. I felt obliged to till her garden. Then she felt indebted to give me a bunch of fire wood since I did such a great job tilling her garden.

I talked to Paul, the neighbors kid, hard core trucker. Michelle and I were talking bout getting a semi truck trailer since we saw a youtuber back east bought a worn out 30' trailer for $100. Well it sounds like AB isn't the place to buy a semi trailer to use as a red neck storage shed, or whatever. Michelle and I have very different ideas about what we would do with it. In AB you can register a semi trailer, for personal use, for the one time registration fee of $100 I think it is. Then apparently you can put RV insurance on a semi truck, and as long as you have an air brake licence, you can drive that around all you want. That and they are popular to put in highway side fields to paint signs on, getting around sign bylaws, all makes them fetch over $1000 in AB, even as an "expired" piece of crap. So I will make a better "tarp" quonset this summer.

I tried to capitalize on winning the RC car, and post a video response on every video Kipkay puts out, cause he is really popular. He stopped allowing them, told me to post them only on his RC video. It all makes sense now. That is why my video responses would stay at the top through one million views of kips videos, because he doesn't normally allow video responses for some reason. I emailed him back and asked him why he didn't accept vid responses, and told him I was just trying to maximize my views by getting the 1% of his viewers to look at my video. He never answers my questions though. Here is one of my rc vid responses.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Diesel Ranger Has Hope

I think the Mitsubishi parts guy is starting to get annoyed with me. I did find the same motor int the Dodge Ram 50 of 83-84, I expect Dodge to be as much help as Ford. Mitsubishi made a "Mighty Max" truck in 87, apparently only available as right hand drive, not in north america. I can't believe after all the work, hours of calling dealers, parts suppliers, engine re builders, diesel ranger forums, blah, blah, blah.
I googled the engine model "4d55t" and "pistons", blam, suppliers in right hand drive continents, New Zealand and Australia, presumably happy to send me brand new pistons and liners, even a complete rebuild kit with all gaskets. Hopefully all gaskets, cause I can't get more than the oil pan gasket and head gasket in Canada. I was going to have a gasket making day. The sad part is it is looking like the block will need to be relined, which will cost $$$, but its not that sad when I can get it all together the rebuild and all will easily cost under $3000 and be brand new.

Thats my new found hope for the morning. Here is a video of the chickens.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Diesel Ranger Update

The Legendary Truck in the blog header, thats taken me 5 years to get to fixing a simple head gasket, isn't so simple any more.


The biggest problem is its a Mitsubishi motor in a Ford truck, that never sold very well. With a lot of prodding, I got Ford part numbers for the obsolete over sized pistons. Mitsubishi can't use Ford part numbers, and has no access to Mitsubishi part numbers, because they have never released a diesel in north america. I have been on the phone to everyone Mitsubishi, myself, and Ford can think of. It is down to now finding pistons w the pin bore, and diameter, and making them work. Making them work simply involves shaving the piston top down, or shaving the motor top down, depending on which if any are too high. Or maybe I will just part it out and sell the pieces.

As mentioned we went to Bellis this weekend for a farm auction, an open house, and we got 2 more chickens. The open house was a lame little house like we have, they want $300k for, and the auction was a total disappointment. I really only wanted a lawn tractor rototiller attachment from an auction. No such thing at this auction, nor was there anything else usefull at the auction. So we went out for lunch, and without even mentioning my wants for the day, someone there we knew, asked if I have a rototiller. I told her we have an electric one I made, but its slow. She said her garden takes 8 hours to do w her gas unit that hasn't run for years. I figure the electric would take 16 hours. So she says I can have her gas rototiller, if I can pick it up. It got a quick carburetor rebuild, and some seized control cables replaced and it was good to go. But it is only 15" wide, and my lawn tractor is 36" wide. So I welded the tines off the old electric tiller on the new gas tiller for a total width of 36 tilling inches. I had to try it with its own propulsion to see if the 6hp could dig 36". It did work, but it was out of hand and out of control. So I removed my snow blade from the lawn tractor and welded u tiller mounts. I took it over and got half of the huge garden tilled, where I picked the unit up, before the Governor self destructed. I will tune that up tomorrow and take some video of it in action.

Chickens


We are really happy w the chickens. They come running out of their warm coop now if they hear us come outside. Todays activities include visiting the town of Bellis, where I bought the chicks, and probably buying more. But mostly going to the farm auction, and checking out an acreage open house.
Sad news on the ol Ranger Diesel, that vid will be up next I expect.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Renovations Have Started

Not on the house, but in the Town of Lamont. My big commercial job has started. The contractor has added a few things and added 10% to my estimate. I am going to go there today, sounds like he he needs some lights rite away.

Nothing else new and exciting. Sunny hot days here now. With 3 chickens and 2 dogs, we have endless entertainment in the back yard. Going to clean the dune buggies up and put them for sale rite away. Here is the vid of the repairs since the roll over.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Does Premium Gas Make a Difference?

I drove Michelle's CM185 the 65km to Vegreville yesterday. I was really impressed it did 100km/h in a full tuck. There was a point that it started doing only 80km/h, and I was messing with the carburetor trying to figure out what was slowing me down. After half an hour on strait roads, holding the throttle flat out with my smooth leather gloves, the grip just slipped out of my grip and decelerated a little. In Veg I topped up the tank w a whole 3 liters of Premium gas for the trip home. And wow the trip home I could do 110km/h and actually keep up to traffic on the little 185cc bike. I have always felt the premium gas difference on my sport bike, but never been able to put numbers to it like the 185 does.

I got invited to be a youtube partner with just one of my videos today. That is exciting, got me even more information about partnerships. This probably also helps my cause to have my whole channel partnered in a month. Yet another lesson to be learned, it is really easy to piggy back off of others success. My "unwrapping the RC car from kipkay" really tapped into all kipkays viewers and got the partnership request.

My latest video is multipurpose. Firstly it will tap in to the huge "davids farm" viewer ship. But also it will put all my buddy Dave's junk out there to my red neck youtube audience, everything is for sale, and I will take commissions on any sales I bring in. Lastly my friends can see the magnitude of junk I have available to build cool stuff with. A quick example is the lawn tractor front tire I blew out. I don't know where to get a new tire, but a tube would be suitable. Everyone is out of stock of 6" tubes, Canadian Tire had 8" tubes, but they are $20, and the wrong size. I pulled in to Daves hoping he had a tire and rim holding air. Yup, sure did, except he would only sell the match set pair together, two tires, on two rims, for $5. Thank You, made another lawn tractor wheelie vid yesterday w my new tire on.

So this video features the sweet "Snow Scoots" that I really want, but have no justification for getting. Then at the end o the video there is a link to the first video of Daves sled junk, and that is all the sleds. There will be a couple more vids w lawn tractors, quads n motorbikes. But check out these sweet snow scoots.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Big News

Michelle received the announcement at work today, along with the rest of the school. The Principal and Vice Principal of her school, Michelle's two favorite Albertans, are leaving the school. That leaves Michelle in the office with Dragon Lady, and guess who is going to take over as Vice Principal. Dragon Lady's son's best friend. So Michelle put her notice in today, done.

I am doing really well with the pre launch of the new Telecom company Omni Net. It has started in Alberta, but there is now offices in Victoria, and soon Toronto, there is opportunity to open Toronto offices. It is all residual income, so it is also an option to collect my pay check in Mexico. You thought I was going to reveille the plan, well I would if I knew.

I should say that nothing new will happen until Sept. Michelle is committed to finish this year at school, June 28 her last day, and then she feels responsible also for coming back in Aug to do year end stuff for "her year"

This weekend I am fixing the rolled dune buggy roll cage, and putting both of them up for sale, videos to come. I received the RC car I won, finally in the mail. This is the video of unwrapping my RC car, I got a lot of subscribers from that giveaway, so this one is for the fans. Looks like I missed muting the video link at the end, makes it a bit confusing, but it took 2 days to get this video up in HD and I am not changing it now.

Youtube

Had some trouble w the weedeater bike, made a quick stand to get it running and never did start it.

Having the "problem" video on youtube was great, because I got suggestions that I would have never thought of for the problem. Its like posting to a forum of people with that specialty, to help you solve the problem. Another Youtube plus.

I am in a good position to be partnered and get adsense revenue on my videos. I can apply again in 1 month, if I am denied then, 3 months for sure. I was going through Kips email to get the tracking # for my RC car, wile he had sent me all the correspondence to the RC people to explain the delay. When I reach the traffic that he is getting, on kipkay.com, that is success. Kip stated his traffic stats, click through and all. The line I liked was something like "I will not only give away your $600 RC car, directing traffic to your site, but I also offer banners on my web site for $500". The RC car offer by the way, gave Kip another 5000 subscribers to his youtube channel, so everybody wins there. I have to come up with something clever to get the half million subscribers Kip nearly has.

I finally put some tracking HTML on this blog, so I can know my traffic, the youtube vids didn't really tell me, because it seems unlogged in user views don't count. So there is no difference in views between posted and not posted vids, especially now I have 100 subscribers. Hopefully this doesn't mean a tracking cookie, I know many people don't allow those and some websites wont work without them. Let me know if anyone has trouble.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Got Chickens

Don't tell the Village office, but I went and got 3 chickens again. First day, Gus Gus tried to eat them. They are still babies, one month old, already traumatized. Anyway its cooler today so I locked them in their little dog house chicken coop. If you remember it was retrofitted w a 4" diameter round hole when its door was open. Keeps coyotes out and warm in. This morning I look out the window, and their coop was forced open, wile you see Gus Guses tail hanging out the door. I'm thinking these chickens didn't last very long, had them for a whole day. If I wasn't so busy yelling at Gus I would have filmed it, it was just bazaar. Gus was happy to just be sitting in the coop, staring at the chickens, wile they all huddled in the corner peeping, "get this monster out of here." He knows better now, so he sits on the back deck and stares at the chicken coop some 30' away from him. A quick video we made on the weekend of Chrisses RC car and Gus.